The Castrol Jaguar XJR-9 IMSA is a reissue kit of the tried and true Silk Cut livery that Hasegawa released many years ago.

The Castrol-sponsored car ran at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1988, and this No. 60 car won its class.

This reissue is a curbside with absolutely no engine detail, except the exhaust hanging out back.

I noticed a lot of flash in the kit indicating the molds are getting tired.

Directions were a bit poor on some of the details that needed to be changed on the body to make it correct for the victorious Daytona car.

The Jag’s chassis is molded in one piece with the interior tub glued to the top, and there’s no front suspension detail at all, just two locating pins for the wheels to slide on with rubber poly caps. Included are rear suspension arms and drive shafts to give the illusion there is a full suspension out back.

For some odd reason, the brake detail in this kit completely lacks calipers. How would you slow this big cat down? Therefore when you look at the brakes, there is nothing there to actually stop them.

The wheels have nice detail for the center hub screws and valve stems. Hasegawa provides white “Dunlop Denloc” transfers for the tires that performed well. A light scuff on the contact area of the tires will eliminate the faint mold seams.

The interior is sparse and with good reason, as it was mainly black or Carbon fiber on the 1:1 racecar. It is noticeably difficult to see inside once all the glass is in place, nevertheless, I detail-painted the areas called out by the instructions, added all the appropriate supplied decals to the gauges and molded-in seatbelt harnesses.

Pay special attention to the rear wing and body modifications needed to make it this specific, accurate, car that competed in the 24 Hours of Daytona. There are a lot of parts not used in this kit, that are in turn, intended for the Silk Cut Le Mans variant.

In the box are two wings, wing ends, and an exhaust system to represent the other versions. The wing parts assembled flawlessly, but if I were to build a really detailed replica, I would have gotten rid of a few light sink marks that were present.

The body has those dreaded rear wheel covers molded into the body. I carefully removed them with the backside of a hobby blade.

I made the covers so I could attach or remove them like the teams did for various tire changes, and at times the big cat would do quick runs around the track sans covers. I added Tacky Craft Glue to the areas where they mounted after decals and painting, so I could have the option of displaying the car with, or without, them.

Decals performed well despite not being made by Cartograf, and needed only a little bit of coaxing from solvents. The green is accurate to the Castrol Motor Oil shade, however the red has a bit too much brown in it, making it look more like rust.

A few areas need to be touched up to match the decals like the top of the front lower air dam along with the lower wing pedestals.

All in all, the entire model builds up quite well. I liked the extra effort needed to remove the rear wheel covers to entirely change the look of the car and show its great wheel and tire stance this kit possesses right out of the box.

It’s a great alternative to the fully-detailed kit from Tamiya. If you prefer to have a nice, closed-up, clean, curbside replica of the XJR-9 then this kit is right for you.